This response is really just playing off your post; it's not really in response to you, since now that I've written it it's gone all over the place. Players like Danny Williams, Alfredo Morales and Tyler Boyd put to lie the idea of this massive MLS bias. All were wildly overrated by the league they played in, and all received a massive amount of whining from people on here when they didn't get called in or didn't play. (If you're asking about Boyd, there was plenty of whining of the MLS Morris starting over the Turkish League Boyd -- but it's become readily apparent that Morris is the better player). People will make lots of excuses, but is it a shock that the Europhile favorites who didn't get a ton of chances have found themselves in lower leagues or losing starting positions (even Yedlin), while the European-based players who are actually better seem to slot right into the starting lineup, despite this awful, horrific bias? (Like Dest and Reyna, for example. Hell, Boyd walked right in before he lost it!) Perhaps, just perhaps, Berhalter selects the player he thinks is best, and it's the Eurosnobs who have a distinct bias for anyone who has the Europe sparkly dust on them? I don't doubt Berhalter has some biases, but there's not any real evidence out there that he's has some systematic bias to MLS. Oh, the same old people who ONLY post on this topic will dredge up carefully curated stats ... but the reality is that it's never been about Europe vs. MLS. Just look at one of what I think is Berhalter's worse decisions: Lovitz. The Eurosnobs love to paint this as Lovitz versus Robinson, and they are right, that's a bad decision. Except it wasn't really that, was it? It was Ream and Lovitz versus Robinson. It might have been a misevaluation of Robinson. It might have been overly conservative. It might have been too kind by far to Lovitz and Ream. But the fact that it was a European player and and MLS player who got those minutes makes it really weird to think there's this huge bias driving decision making. Playing a craptastic but mid-20s Roldan over a 30-year old but craptastic Morales is not a sign of bias. It's actually just a proper analysis of a defensive 8 who can't pass and can't defend in the open field but hey, he's on a Bundesliga team so people who can't evaluate players think he's real good. I'm thankful the talent level is rising so we don't have to deal with a Roldan v Morales conversation going forward, but the number of people who thought there was a conspiracy because Alfredo Morales wasn't getting playing time is HILARIOUS.
Don't agree with your logic, it tells me that you're an outsider of the game. (besides you talk/write too much) I really look forward in seeing the new stars play together in an official tournament; then we'll see how good they can perform as a team.....just that ???
I agree with the basis of what he is saying, that Berhalter does not hold a bias just because of what league someone is playing in. It's a good sign that he will play who he feels are the best players, and the best players that fit his system.
These are just odd arguments, because it doesn't really speak to results. Egg was busy getting probably the worst results of any NT coach during this time period, so of course his selections are going to be largely criticized. If he was managing a team that was beating Jamaica, that wasn't getting trounced by Venezuela, Canada, Mexico, playing even with Curacao, the criticisms would have been far less vocal. It's not just better player selection recently for him, but it's results. If he put out a side that would have lost to Panama and El Salvador, the anger would have continued. But now he seems to be selecting simply the best players (Bradley/Trapp/Omar/Lovitz were never the best players) and getting decent results (though still too early, as the recent matches have been jokes, outside of Wales when they had the best chance to win it). But again, criticism doesn't come JUST from picking MLS players. It came from picking MLS players and then failing remarkably with them. Most fans here liked his recent MLS selections, they performed capably, and thus - nobody is really unhappy.
Not sure if true with the recent comments about him first giving time to veterans as a lost chance thing. Nice to think that's what happened as the talent pool was very heavily leaning towards super talented but almost zero experienced guys. So playing vets to get a last chance while the kids picked up experience and didn't have interruptions from national team callups makes sense. If that's what he did.
The premise of this thread and its discussion was very relevant when it was started, and I'd argue it continued to be relevant through last year up until the Covid break. It hasn't been very relevant since the Covid re-start, and really ought to be dropped, or re-started with a drastically different focus.
Watching the emergence and leaps forward of young players in Euro leagues, almost weekly, seems to change the task facing GB. More than even usual for a national team, his job is to sort through a new wealth of talent and find ways to let those abilities flourish. The problem is finding the formations for these players, not the players for the system. The broader and deeper talent pool also gives him the luxury of playing his elite players in their best, most comfortable positions.
Agreed but at a certain point he has to make final choices as least for a while. He can then change even more for the actual WC (if we don't blow it again).
Where do these ideas come from. We have about 15 players that have shown they are better than the rest of the pool by a good margin. There is no reason those last 8 spots couldn't be rotated during qualifying. We have tons of young talent that looks like they could make the jump to that higher level. The idea that another player like Reyna/Pulisic emerges or another Musah commits and we leave them off because a guy like Roldan has experience sitting on the bench is just stupid.
There's plenty of spots on a roster that rarely play in a window or play minimally to bring guys in. We can also bring guys into camps without rostering if needed, and we've got the Olympic Quals / Olympics, Gold Cup, etc., to try out guys. Having three matches in a window does reduce the number of excess roster spots. But there's a balance between qualifying, integration and continued try outs. I'm not sure it's a sort of final choice limit so much as a slow decrease in experimentation until we qualify.
To my eyes, the next 18 months will be less about his final system and more about how flexible is the program to react to a constantly changing pool. The old philosophy of "pick your guys and get them a lot of games together" is no longer tenable. We are in a new world where talent comes out of the woodworks and blows away previous expectations.
You have to think it slows down somewhat which will probably help Berhalter; who seems slow to adjust tactics to emerging talent. Gregg has been as quick as can be to get new elite talent in the starting lineup (Dest, Reyna, Musah); but slow to adjust his System to bring out their best (Adams another example from earlier). But the starting 11 is populated by UCL and Europa League players at almost all positions. The bench is starting to accumulate the same along with MLS DPs. This has been a very swift change from bang average MLS players being the bulk of rosters. Even part-time MLS players being involved. But now the next Reyna will have Reyna in front of him and only 19-20. The next Pulisic will have Pulisic in front of him. It will be exciting if someone emerges better than those two. Obviously, if a talent on par with Wes McKennie or Dest emerges at one of the few spots left (RCB, LB, CF), then they would move right in. But then the next one there hits that player. Exciting times! Can Berhalter keep up? Can Gregg actually get these players, who are playing at levels far beyond what he has played or coached at, to gel? So far, against the few good teams we have played we have been unable to score. That has to be fixed as soon as possible.
I think keeping up with the changing player pool would be difficult at any time for most coaches. Doing so with severely limited opportunities to see players due to Covid makes it even tougher. I've had issues with things Berhalter does, but he has been dealt an extremely tricky hand in many ways. He's got a ton of better than normal players for the US, but he hasn't been able to actually use them or even get them together much at all. I'm not confident he will maximize the team in limited opportunities, but I do think most other teams are facing similar difficulties and talent should win out as it most typically does. In fact, with all the chaos I'd guess this will be a cycle where raw talent will be more important than ever.
I agree with that right now, but hopefully by the Gold Cup and start of WCQ, we really see that player pool be whittled down to a coherent team and system.
All of these issues in having talent are things that the perennial actual, (elo not fifa) top 20 teams in the world having been dealing with for decades and again there is nothing complicated here that requires some new genius move from Berhalter, or all those administrators like Earnie and McBride, just adopting proven models, not reinventing the wheel. A basic uncomplicated system that reflects either the nations roots and general style of play (Dutch 4-3-3), or some pretty vanilla system familiar to most of your players, with small adjustments that your glut of talented players can easily be rotated through without a lot of consternation. The massive change for us is from this model we have had of trying to make more out of the sum of our parts through continuity and veterans with experience playing together, whose national team career was often a higher level and exposure than their club career and often became undroppable icons, captains for life and legends just by playing every minute of every available game together. That era is thankfully over. I am as skeptical as anyone about Berhalter tactically, I remain disgusted by the circumstances under which he got the job, He has zero actual difficulties, he’s the luckiest manager in history to inherit this kind of talent after a complete face plant by a predecessor, I’ve yet to be impressed by anything he’s done tactically and his actual results thus far are wholly unimpressive. Having said all that, his handling of, flexibility and willingness to utilize the player pool, particularly lately is a breath of fresh air and a long time coming.
Here's an interview about Berhalter looking ahead to 2021: https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-...-focus-on-trophiespoints-and-building-a-squad Really good questions IMO. One of the most interesting questions is about building depth beyond the team hierarchy. The interview mentions depth behind Mckennie and Pulisic, but Berhalter says that the list of players on the "hierarchy" is 7 or 8 player long. I interpret that as Greg fully plans to start them unless significant other factors come into play. I'd view the list as something like: 1) Pulisic 2) Mckennie 3) Adams 4) Steffen 5) Reyna 6) Dest 7) Brooks Overall I think it's a good thing that he's viewing the team in this way. Thoughts?
Here's the full question and quote: ESPN: How do you go about establishing depth and hierarchy within the team, beyond guys like Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie? Is it really just about them impressing in camp? GB: I think that list is bigger than what you just mentioned. You mentioned two players, I think, it's seven or eight players long. And then it's just about the performance -- their performance weekly within their clubs, and then their performance with the national team. And then more specifically, the form they're in when they're playing. If we have to play a World Cup qualifier and you were to choose between two players who are pretty equal in their qualities, we'll certainly look at the club form they're in. I think that that's reasonable to expect.
Here's another quote about the Nations League, Olympics, and Gold Cup: GB: When you say younger players, I can envision some part of that younger player pool will be at the Olympics, right? And then I can envision some part of younger pool being part of the Nations League. I just don't know who's going to be available for the Gold Cup. Seems like he's prioritizing Nation's league #1, Olympics as #2 and the Gold Cup as #3. I personally like this because the Olympics is a worldwide tournament that only happens once every four years. Going far in this competition would be way more exciting than winning/going far in the Gold cup IMO.
I'd say the priorities for the year are: 1. WCQing: A-Team 2. Nation's League A-Team 3. Olympics: MLS-based U23s 4. Gold Cup: whatever is left over
I highly doubt the Olympics are happening, I was surprised they assumed it was happening 100%. Once again I really appreciate Berhalter's willingness to communicate to us through the media it is really refreshing. I thought it was weird that he was specifically asked about Antonee Robinson and then talked about everyone other than him, also disappointed Bradley was brought up again and again the question wasn't laughed at. Outside of that there wasn't much else to it.
Many of his answers were political, which was smart. But he continues to say the right things. He almost always has. His 2019 rosters and tactics were counter to what he said, and 2020 was a wash. We will see if he puts his money where his mouth is in 2021. But, to this point about 7-8 locked in starters, he has said that before. But it also implies the starting 11 is mostly set. So, we really shouldn't see a return to 2019 tactics and reliance on guys that now get cut from January camps. Who #8 is is anyone's guess. Robinson, Morris, Weah? Sargent? Miazga? Long?
The Olympics are U24, if they happen. So, when he says part of the younger pool will be there, it is by definition. I don't know if you can say it is a priority above Gold Cup. I agree the CNL in June is where the A Team will play. Funny that the Gold Cup will be the leftovers, but could be a better squad than the Olympic squad. If you take the A Team U24 players out of the Olympic Pool, what is left is a lot of what you see in Florida right now, not that pretty. And not a gold medal. Maybe in 2024.